Chanco students plant 3 000 trees at Ku Chawe

Students at Chancellor College, a constituent of the University of Malawi, have successfully reforested Zomba’s Ku Chawe with 3 000 trees.

Students planted the trees

Chancellor College students Union Raphael Ned carry a placard showing where trees have been planted

Chanco students planting trees

The initiative was a brainchild of the college’s environmental and sustainable clinic under the faculty of law.

And student union president, Raphael Ned, said it was their responsibility to conserve and do justice to the environment.

Ned said: “It is time to stand up and take action because the environment plays an important role in our everyday lives.”

President of the environmental justice and sustainability clinic, Asante Chikopa, said they figured out that the cutting down of trees without replacing them has gone to the extreme.

“As a clinic, our aim is not just planting trees but also to look at legal aspects of the situation and try to figure out if any laws have been put in place in order to make sure that the cutting down of trees is being reduces,” said Chikopa.

Zomba Timber Plantation manager, Leonard Kamangadzi, has since commended Chanco students for the initiative.

“As government, we will make sure that the trees are well managed and protected,” he said.

On 18 December 2017, Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika launched the 2017/2018 tree planting season in Mwanza district where he called upon all the stakeholders in the country to play a leading role in environmental conservation.

Mutharika said his government would remain resolved to making Malawi green again as one way of restoring the countries natural resources, especially forest.